Tiny falcons are helping keep the food supply safe on cherry farms
摘要
每年春天，美国最小的猛禽美洲隼会飞越密歇根北部的樱桃园捕食。几十年来，果农通过设置巢箱与它们形成共生关系：这些隼捕食田鼠、鸟类等危害作物的动物，有效减少了收成损失。最新研究进一步指出，美洲隼还能降低食源性疾病风险。它们在果园中捕食或驱赶携带病原体的小鸟，使果实受损率降低81%，被鸟类粪便污染的枝条减少66%，从而帮助保障樱桃的食用安全。
Every spring, raptors return to nesting sites across northern Michigan. The smallest of these birds of prey, a falcon called the American kestrel (Falco sparverius), flies through the region’s many cherry orchards and spends its days hunting for even tinier creatures to eat. This quest keeps the kestrels fed, but it also benefits the region’s cherry farmers.
Fruit farmers have been working symbiotically with kestrels for decades, adding nesting boxes and reaping the benefits of the birds eliminating the mice, voles, songbirds, and other pests that wreak havoc by feeding on not-yet-harvested crops. In addition to limiting the crop damage caused by hungry critters, new research suggests kestrels also lower the risk of food-borne illnesses.
The study, published in November in the Journal of Applied Ecology, suggests the kestrels help keep harmful pathogens off of fruit headed to consumers by eating and scaring off small birds that carry those pathogens. Orchards housing the birds in nest boxes saw fewer cherry-eating birds than orchards without kestrels on site. This translated to an 81 percent reduction in crop damage—such as bite marks or missing fruit—and a 66 percent decrease in branches contaminated with bird feces.
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